Smart travel

AIDA bicycle excursions offer many advantages. They are healthy, environmentally friendly and bring guests close to real life in the destination region. Bike excursions have been part of our program for many years and that makes us a pioneer and trendsetter in the cruise industry. With our new “fleet” of Segways and E-Bikes – an increasing number of which are available on AIDA ships – we will be able to offer our guests even more opportunities in the future of discovering the shoreside area in an environmentally-friendly and hugely enjoyable way. In 2013, some ships in the AIDA fleet were equipped with 21 E-Bikes each, and a fourth ship was equipped with Segways. Just like our trusty bicycle tours, the guided tours on Segways or E-Bikes offer an exceptionally relaxing experience on two wheels. If you have any questions on our tours, please get directly in touch with the AIDA Biking Team at biking@aida.de.

In all AIDA excursions, it is very important to us that any packaging or other waste generated is disposed of on site in an environmentally-friendly way. If this is not possible, our participants take their garbage back on board with them. There we can separate, recycle and dispose of waste as necessary.

Sustainably designed shoreside excursions do not just allow our guests to enjoy unforgettable experiences; they also contribute substantially to economic development, protection and promotion of the environment and cultural heritage and the preservation of the livelihoods of local populations. We sent a clear signal for sustainable tourism when we signed the UN-WTO Code of Ethics for Tourism in 2012.

This commitment also continues within the framework of the “sustainable shoreside excursions” project that we are implementing in collaboration with Futouris e.V. and the State Chancellery of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as part of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. The aim of this cooperation is to use the example of cruise ships in the Baltic Sea area to develop criteria for sustainability in shoreside excursions on cruises.

The first phase saw over 20,000 AIDA guests take part in an online guest questionnaire in a period of just three months. A third of guests said that they would prefer sustainable shoreside excursions. Guests considered the following of particular importance in this regard: Avoiding littering the destination country, protecting nature and biodiversity and reducing bus exhaust fumes.

In the second phase, we want to develop concrete assessment frameworks. To do this, we are preparing easily identifiable and measurable goals that can be evaluated with certainty. Every excursion is broken down into its individual components. Each component is then evaluated with a points system – the more sustainable it is, the more points it receives. That means that a bike trip will score higher than a sightseeing tour on a bus. But even on a bus trip, optimizing passenger numbers and using a newer bus can gain points back. Numerous other factors are evaluated positively in the development of the criteria, such as intensive nature and cultural events, regional delicacies made from local products and the use of certified guides for cultural and nature tours.